NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To the Presbyters of Nicopolis.Letter CCXL. 3022To the Presbyters of Nicopolis.1. You have done quite right in sending me a letter, and in sending it by the hands ofone who, even if you had not written, would have been perfectly competent to give meconsiderable comfort in all my anxieties, and an authentic report as to the position of affairs.Many vague rumours were continually reaching me, and therefore I was desirous of gettinginformation on many points from some one able to give it through accurate knowledge.Touching all these I have received a satisfactory and intelligent narrative from our well-belovedand honourable brother Theodosius the presbyter. I now write to your reverencesthe advice which I give myself, for in many respects our positions are identical; and that notonly at the present moment, but in times gone by too, as many instances may prove. Ofsome of these we possess records in writing; others we have received through unwritten recollectionfrom persons acquainted with the facts. We know how, for the sake of the nameof the Lord, trials have beset alike individuals and cities that have put their trust in Him.Nevertheless, one and all have passed away, and the distress caused by the days of darknesshas not been everlasting. For just as when hail-storm and flood, and all natural calamities,at once injure and destroy things that have no strength, while they are only themselves affectedby falling on the strong, so the terrible trials set in action against the Church havebeen proved feebler than the firm foundation of our faith in Christ. The hail-storm haspassed away; the torrent has rushed over its bed; clear sky has taken the place of the former,and the latter has left the course without water and dry, over which it travelled, and hasdisappeared in the deep. So, too, in a little while the storm, now bursting upon us, will ceaseto be. But this will be on the condition of our being willing not to look to the present, butto gaze in hope at the future somewhat further off.2. Is the trial heavy, my brethren? Let us endure the toil. No one who shuns the blowsand the dust of battle wins a crown. Are those mockeries of the devil, and the enemies sentto attack us, insignificant? They are troublesome because they are his ministers, but contemptiblebecause God has in them combined wickedness with weakness. Let us beware ofbeing condemned for crying out too loud over a little pain. Only one thing is worth anguish,the loss of one’s own self, when for the sake of the credit of the moment, if one can reallycall making a public disgrace of one’s self credit, one has deprived one’s self of the everlastingreward of the just. You are children of confessors; you are children of martyrs; you haveresisted sin unto blood. 3023 Use, each one of you, the examples of those near and dear to3022 Placed in 376.3023 cf. Heb. xii. 4.778